I used to make a whole bunch of goals and challenges for my reading every year. I didn’t always meet them; more often than not, I fell short. For the last couple of years, though, I’ve kept my goals limited to just the total number of books I want to read for the year.

This year I made my usual reading goal, choosing a number I felt was pretty do-able. I decided that I wanted to focus on my 100 books project, reviews and series. I didn’t make any special goals for how many of them I would complete, just that they would be my focus.

My reading goal was met at the end of July and , if I continue at my current pace, I will finish at 184% to my original goal. I will definitely have my best reading year ever. As for the other items on my list, it’s a little harder to say. I’ve completed 11 series so far, but I have over 100 in some stage of completion and around 500 more on my want to read list. For reviews, I’ve finished 27 so far this year, but I have close to 200 more to get through (most are really old). And I have 162 of the 268 books on my first 100 books project left to complete (most of these are from really long series {up to 60 books each}). I am currently reading 10 of these.

Earlier this year I had toyed with increasing my overall reading goal and setting specific goals for my other focus categories. Ultimately, I decided not to, so that I can focus on the reading and not just trying to get to a specific number. Would I love to double my initial goal? Heck yeah. But numbers are just numbers, as long as I can devote a significant portion of my life to the hobby I love, as long as I am choosing books that I enjoy, it’s all good. Because that’s what it’s all about after all.